


A Familiar Discovery

by AdmiralPegasus



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Gen, Trans, Trans Female Character, Trans Girl Harry Potter, Trans Harry Potter, Transgender, Transitioning
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-08
Updated: 2020-05-16
Packaged: 2021-02-27 21:15:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,060
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22612393
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AdmiralPegasus/pseuds/AdmiralPegasus
Summary: A little mini-fic meant to follow from Eon_The_Dragon_Mage's excellent 'Magical Metamorphosis,' taking place during Holly's fifth year. Holly finds a kindred spirit.
Comments: 14
Kudos: 212





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Magical Metamorphosis](https://archiveofourown.org/works/11063298) by [Eon_the_Dragon_Mage](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Eon_the_Dragon_Mage/pseuds/Eon_the_Dragon_Mage). 



> AN: This fic is meant to be a tiny little addition to Eon_the_Dragon_Mage’s excellent Magical Metamorphosis, written to take place during Holly’s fifth year - after Chapter 17: Graveyard and Guardians (as of 04/02/2020). I don’t want to tread on Eon’s toes, so I’m trying to be as vague as I can about events outside of my own additions. She may take my work and adapt it if she likes, I just had some ideas I wanted to give a shot. Plus I needed something to stretch the ol’ writing muscles anyway.  
> To Eon: I f***ing love your story! I found it the other day and devoured it. Twice. Okay maybe five times. It’s so incredibly relatable and human, and I love your version of Holly. Also I love your use of the Marauder’s Map! I knew about the stair charm as an way of proving things but I never thought of using the Map to show names.  
> -A fellow trans girl. <3

It had been a few weeks since Holly’s first run-in with Professor Umbridge. The scar tissue on the back of her hand was healing, albeit inconsistently, and Ron had to keep swatting her hand to stop her from picking at it absentmindedly. Holly, Ron and Hermione were sitting in the alcoves between pillars in the hallway, eating bread rolls and comparing notes on the pitiful essay Umbridge had assigned the class - on pixies. A creature they had been very familiar with in second year, which Hermione had wasted no time pointing out.

“It’s like she hasn’t even _looked_ at what the others taught! Lockhart was bad, but at least there were practical lessons!” she said, her voice tinged with outrage.

“Even Quirrell taught us more than this and he literally had Voldemort on the back of his head!” Holly laughed as a grin split her face, “Maybe she’s wearing a wig.”

“Wouldn’t surprise me,” said Ron, through a mouthful of sausage and bread, drawing the disgusted looks of his peers.

“As ever, Ron never stops eating. The more things change,” Holly looked wistfully about the bustling hallway. _Who’s that?_ she thought, noticing a student not far from them on the other side of the corridor. A first year, she recognized his face from the Sorting Ceremony. Arnold something or other. Beady blue eyes looked out below flat brown hair cut in a short back and sides style reminiscent of the football players Uncle Vernon had so derided - clearly grown out a bit since it was last cut, starting to give the boy a bit of a fringe.

He’d been sorted into Gryffindor almost before the Hat had been placed on his head, but unlike most for whom that happened, he was small - not just in stature, although this was also true, but in his presence. He kept to himself, shyly reaching for food at the Great Hall but never asking for help for what he couldn’t reach. Then again, Holly thought, he wasn’t so different from Hermione and herself during their own first year. He’d grow.

But for now, he was sitting slouched across from them and while he had a book in his hands, it wasn’t his focus. Holly was. As soon as he noticed Holly’s gaze had met his own, his eyes darted back to the book as his cheeks went redder by a hint. Hermione pulled out the textbook Umbridge had given them with a huff, drawing Holly’s attention back.

“Look at this,” she said, turning to the relevant section, “This isn’t even accurate! It’s been simplified, probably in the assumption that we’re airheaded idiots. And this is what she wants us to write based on!”

“I wonder if she’d notice if we rephrased the example essay,” Ron suggested, soliciting a glare from Hermione. “Oh, all right, no copying.”

As the three swapped banter regarding Umbridge’s narcissistic idiocy, Holly noticed that the boy had simply adopted a more secretive method of watching them, looking up from his book every few seconds. After a while, he seemed to realize that he’d been caught again, departing with the book clutched to his chest.

\--

“Ugh. Ron, do you know what’s wrong with this? I can’t tell what I did wrong but I _know_ that 38.2 isn’t the answer.” Holly asked, pushing her Arithmancy parchment toward him.

“Me? Mate, if Hermione can’t help you, no-one can.” It was getting thoroughly late, as even Hermione stifled a yawn. Moonlight filtered into the Common Room windows as candles began to run dry of wax. Holly leaned back into the couch, smothering her face in her hands.

“Wait, I see what you’ve done wrong. That’s been simplified wrong,” Hermione pulled the parchment back to her, pointing to a fraction that had indeed been mistakenly simplified. Holly groaned and began to copy her previous work, setting back to the task of simplifying it, fighting through her own exhaustion just to put quill to parchment.

The Common Room was silent for a time, as the three focused on their own work, Holly and Hermione occasionally collaborating quietly on problems. Half an hour later, when it must have been damn near three o’clock in the morning, Holly heard footsteps - Ron was half-asleep and Hermione was too buried in Arithmancy to notice. Slowly but surely, Holly saw a mop of brown hair precede a first year student down the boys’ dormitory stairs, wrapped in a blanket. It was the same kid she’d caught staring a month or so beforehand, his hair grown further to the point it must have been obscuring his eyes - after all, he failed to notice the three fifth years occupying the space.

The first-year reached the landing and turned to the twin doors, sitting down on a stool nearby. Holly noticed the student breathing deeply; perhaps he’d had a nightmare, she surmised. Best to leave him be. Returning to her work, she kept an eye on the kid.

It was a few minutes later when he stood, rocking slightly - Holly saw that beneath the blanket he was clutching a stuffed toy to his chest, but she couldn’t make out what it was before the blanket wrapped around him again. Contrary to what Holly expected, the kid hesitantly stepped toward the girls’ stairs. Holly looked up, her eyes wide as metaphorical cogs turned in her head. Hermione jerked her head up at Holly’s sudden movement, following her gaze to the stairway. She looked back to Holly, her mouth open slightly in worry and confusion before Holly pressed her finger to her lips.

“Be ready to help if he falls but..” Holly trailed off, watching intently as the first-year took the first step. A loud click resounded through the Common Room as shoe hit stone harder than perhaps the kid was hoping, as he tensed up. Ron roused and Holly grabbed him before he could say anything.

Second step.

Third step.

Fourth step.

Hermione gaped at Holly, her eyes wide with recognition as Holly looked on in awe.

“Do you think -” she asked, as Holly released the breath she’d been holding. She didn’t answer. Instead, she got up slowly and walked over to the stairwell. No alarm had sounded, no slide had formed. At the first landing, she saw the kid pacing on the spot, spinning anxiously and holding her hands to her face. Holly gently cleared her throat as the newcomer jumped, looking back to Holly, terrified.

“You and I have something in common, I see?” she smiled warmly at the younger student, speaking gently, so as to not wake anyone. As she descended the stair, her blanket trailing behind her, she spoke.

“You’re Holly Potter - you’re like me,” she said, her voice unsure.

“That’s right. Would you like to come sit down?”

\--

“I’m - they call me Arnold, but my name’s Tori,” she said, “I um. I read about you.” Tori pulled a piece of paper from her pajamas, revealing a familiar article title; _Boy-Who-Lived Becomes Girl-Who-Lived_ by Rita Skeeter, dated the year before - the article from the Wand Weighing ceremony. It had been torn semi-rectangularly from the _Daily Prophet_ , with Holly’s photo looking disapprovingly at the tear which infringed upon her frame - the photographic Holly gasped, seeing her present face, waving. It was surreal, to see her old face and how much she’d changed, Holly realized, waving back. The trio sat opposite from her on a couch, while Tori had her own chair.

“My parents didn’t like it. Mum didn’t really care, but I think Dad still calls you by your deadname. I grabbed the article before they threw the paper away.” Holly gave a forlorn look at the news of people still using her deadname.

“You kept it?” she asked.

“Yeah. It helped. I guess I thought that if the most famous girl in the world can face the crowds and do what you did, so could I. I remembered the charm on the stairs - you can get up them, so maybe I could too,” she clutched the small bear in her lap, “And I can!” she exclaimed, bouncing in her seat a small bit. While Tori spoke, Holly unfolded the Marauder’s Map, finding the Common Room. Sure enough, beside Holly Potter, Ronald Weasley and Hermione Granger sat a dot labelled _Tori Cobbler-Royal_.

“What else have you tried?” Hermione asked, leaning curiously forward. Tori avoided eye contact.

“Nothing really, apart from my hair. My mum and dad don’t really let me do anything. Dad always gives me this haircut, and I _hate_ it. I don’t know what to do,” her eyes darted up to Holly, “Can you help?” Holly stood and embraced the girl, pulling her into a tight hug that Hermione and Ron soon joined.

“Sure can. I’ll do my best.”

“Thanks,” Tori sniffled, wiping away a tear.

“Would you like me to go talk to Professor McGonnagall for you in the morning? I have Transfiguration first thing so it’s not out of my way.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for reading! And before anyone asks, yes, Tori is very much a bit of a self-insert (yes, including the haircut thing) but aged down a bit and a lot more self-aware than I was at her age. I only really realized what was up last year and I’m nearly 19, but it’d been brewing for a lot longer and looking back it really should have been obvious to me. I had fun thinking of the possible later outcomes of Rita’s article on Holly, and wondered how a closeted trans girl might find it helpful.


	2. A Familiar Mistake

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A prequel to A Familiar Discovery, I had another idea and thought I'd give y'all some more crumbs of story.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW: Transphobia, gender dysphoria, misgendering and deadnaming

- **Four Months Earlier** -

Tori Cobbler-Royal woke with a start. Truth be told, despite the occasion of her 11th birthday, she hadn’t been sleeping well. Hogwarts was daunting. True enough, her mother had insisted she attend muggle school to ensure she had a basic understanding of mathematics and the like, but the wizarding school was a whole different ballpark. She was used to studying maths and physics, not charms and pixies. She didn’t know anyone there, and apparently the place was horribly designed; she had heard horror stories about the staircases from her father and had quickly resolved to avoid them where possible.

It was far earlier than Tori’s preference, 6:37 in the morning, but she didn’t think she’d be able to get back to sleep if she tried. She sat up, leaning over to her bedside table and retrieving a book -  _ Magician’s Gambit _ , by David Eddings. Her father thought the series silly with its treatment of magic, but her mother had enjoyed them. The first time Tori’s magic had come into play, her mother had gone on about Tori being her “little Belgarion” for entirely too long.

The constant references to it making her a “young man” were certainly not appreciated either. It had put her off the series for a few weeks, but she didn’t have much else to do with the school year over. She wondered idly as she flipped the page if the Hogwarts library had novels or if she’d have to pack her own. This only lead to more questions. Were there famous wizarding authors? Had they been published among muggles or did the wizarding world have its own publishing houses? Did the wizarding world have its own set of classic literature students studied at Hogwarts in much the same way as muggles? Her dad had never mentioned any. Though, to be fair her mum had always gone on about how useless he could be outside of magic, with no real grasp even on the basics of the muggle world - she had met him as a teenager bewildered on the Underground, trying to get to the public entrance of the Ministry… on the wrong side of London. Maybe he just hadn’t paid much attention.

Setting down the book after her mind had unreliably meandered in and out of the story for most of an hour and the dawning sun had begun to spike at her eyes through the gap in the curtains, Tori got out of bed and headed downstairs in her pajamas. The Cobbler-Royals lived in a comfortable two-story house on a hill - much like many wizarding families, the building had its own eccentric name; her father Lane had been immensely entertained by the muggle story of an old woman living in a shoe, and had named it as such: Granny’s Boot. It was pretty easy to keep unique in the Floo Network. She fetched a bowl from beneath the bench, filling it with cereal before taking it and the bottle of milk to the table.

Not much later, her mother, Ellie, scrambled down the stairs laughing, with her father’s wand up her sleeve.

“No, you can make your damn breakfast like a normal person instead of setting your toast on fire with your mind. Oh hey Arnold, up early I see. You sleep okay?” she called back upstairs, before sidestepping Lane who had followed her, only half-dressed.

“Yeah, all good,” Tori replied through a mouthful of cornflakes.

“Aha! Happy birthday young man!” her father called over, after managing to nudge Ellie’s arm and dislodge the wand, returning it to his possession. “Anything you want to do today?”

“Aren’t we going to Diagon Alley later once my school list arrives?” she asked, confused.

“Well yeah, duh, but when we’re done. I know a good place for ice cream there if you like, Florean’s. We can stop off at Obscurus, see if there’s anything you’d like to read.”

“Obscurus?”

“It’s a wizarding publishing house, have I not mentioned it before?” Tori shook her head, mouth full, “Oops. Yeah, there might be something there you’d like. Much better than that cockamamie  _ Belgariad _ stuff. There’s also Whizz Hard Books if there’s nothing good at Obscurus.” Tori considered her previous internal questions answered. Her mother scowled at his scorn of her books.

“Sounds good.”

“Well, regardless, you need to get dressed. Both of you,” Ellie raised an eyebrow at Lane whose shirt was only half on. “Off you pop Arnie,” she said, passing her and patting her on the shoulder. Tori gulped down the last few cornflakes before abandoning the bowl and scurrying back upstairs. She was, as usual, careful with her clothes. Absent from her drawer, or at most buried beneath more oft-used clothes, was anything short-sleeved. She chose a pair of baggy black track pants, with a blue long-sleeved t-shirt. It had something printed on it, but that had long since faded into illegibility. Unsatisfied with her coverings, she pulled on a long flannel jacket. Unfortunately she couldn’t wear it buttoned up, it was too hot, but the obfuscation of her torso would have to do as it was.

She didn’t remember ever having felt anything other than exposed in just a t-shirt.

Just as she began to reconsider braving the summer heat and buttoning the jacket, lamenting the likelihood that her father was probably downstairs with the hair glue he insisted upon spiking up her short back and sides haircut with, she jumped at a sharp tap from her curtained window. Tori at first ignored it, moving to go back downstairs before it happened again. Then, she put 2 and 2 together.

_ That’s an owl! My letter! _ she realized, scrambling to open the curtains. Indeed, a mottled brown owl jumped at her sudden movement before moving back to the window like a cat wanting to come back inside immediately after leaving.

Tori hurriedly opened the window, letting the owl inside as it hooted insistently. Jumping in, the owl dropped an envelope adorned with what she knew to be the Hogwarts crest on Tori’s lap. Tori grabbed it in elation, turning it over and smiling at the wizarding world’s quaint use of parchment over paper.

Her heart stopped.

_ To: _

_ Tori Cobbler-Royal _ __   
_ Granny’s Boot _ _   
_ __ England

Tori’s spine turned to ice, or at least it felt that way as her real name bore into her eyeballs.

Nobody knew that name.  _ Nobody _ .

How the  _ fuck _ was it on this envelope?

She didn’t have time to complete that line of inquiry - downstairs she heard voices of surprise. She wasn’t fully sure what was said, but she knew the word “owl” was in there.

“Is that an owl up there Arnold? Merlin, that’ll be your Hogwarts letter won’t it?” she could already hear her father’s footsteps coming up the stairs. Panicking, she broke the seal as quickly as she could and almost tore the letter removing it from the incriminating envelope.  _ Please, please, please no _ rang through her mind as she unfolded it. It  _ had _ to be safe, her parents had to see the list of things to buy!  _ Fuck fuck fuck _ .

Relief.

Signed by a Professor McGonnagall was her Hogwarts acceptance letter, written to an Arnold Cobbler-Royal. Her parents weren’t about to find out. Her father knocked on the door, and she immediately shoved the envelope deep into her waste paper basket before going to the door.

\--

Tori slumped back in her wooden desk chair after a long day of stationery shopping. They’d entirely forgotten to buy her cauldron after ice cream, and had had to rush back to the Alley via Floo after getting home just in time to get to the shop before it closed. Tori was grateful for the long flowing robes and actual trousers of the uniform, she had felt naked in her uniform for muggle school - short sleeves were hellish, let alone shorts. As she put her new wand in its box and placed it on the bedside table along with a couple of novels she’d been bought, she saw, out of the corner of her eye, the envelope of the letter through the basket.

_ How  _ **_did_ ** _ my name end up on that? _ she wondered. Kneeling, she dug through the small bin, hoping not to get a papercut. Eventually, she found it, pulling it out.

_ Tori _ .

It said  _ Tori _ .

She hadn’t actually received many letters. Any, actually. What if the owls didn’t bring her letters addressed to Arnold? That could make keeping things from her parents difficult.

But it said Tori. There  _ had _ to be magic involved, she’d never told anyone about it.

However it had happened, she liked it. It made it official, in a way. She was Tori Cobbler-Royal and nobody could take that away from her. She’d keep it - even if the letter within had already been misplaced in the living room somewhere, she’d keep the envelope. She dug into her pillowcase, pulling out a scrap of parchment. Poorly torn from the  _ Daily Prophet _ it read  _ Boy-Who-Lived Becomes Girl-Who-Lived - By Rita Skeeter _ . The picture of Holly, who seemed to have gotten used to being folded up and was sitting on the crease with her legs hanging onto the other side, waved at her. Tori showed her the address, the photographic girl seeming confused by it.

She folded the envelope and then, reconsidering, unfolded it, instead putting the article inside it. Satisfied, she returned the two to the pillowcase.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So some folks liked the last little addition I made, so with more Tori comes even more self-insert! The hair glue thing is also true of me, my hands were all horrible for a bit in school because I’d try to comb it out with my hands. Same with the clothes and school uniforms.
> 
> The Belgariad is a real series, Magician’s Gambit is the third in it I believe - it’s a fantasy series which follows a burgeoning sorcerer called Garion. Little cheeky reference, since I like to think Magician’s Gambit was the book that made me want to write my own stories.
> 
> Much like Tori, I had no idea if the wizarding world had like, famous authors and the like. I looked up Diagon Alley to see what was there and was surprised to see not one, but two publishing houses. Seems they’ve either got an IMMENSE academic community or a thriving creative market. Or both.
> 
> Lane and Ellie conjoined their names instead of one taking the other - Lane (wizard) was Cobbler, Ellie (muggle) was Royal.
> 
> I’m guessing that because the acceptance letters are signed, the names on the letters themselves are handwritten. That and that I didn’t want to write Tori getting outed to her parents by the letter, that was going a bit far for my enjoyment.
> 
> As per usual, Eon is 100% welcome to take what I’ve written and adapt/use it.


End file.
